Thriller set on the ISLE OF SCILLY

20th October 2025

Deadman’s Pool by Kate Rhodes, thriller set on the ISLES of SCILLY.

From the opening page, the reader already knows that a young woman is being kept captive in a dark cellar. She is petrified and she has lost family members. It is a thunderclap start to the book.

DI Ben Kitto is taking the Scilly Isles’ only Roman Catholic priest across to St Helen’s, a curious, uninhabited island that has a mixed history. Solitude is guaranteed but so are the echoes – oftentimes grim – of history. It was used as an isolation island in years gone past, housing any sailor who arrived with a communicable disease. Father Michael is hoping for a spiritual sojourn but as Ben drops him off, Ben’s dog, Shadow, bolts and starts frenetically digging. They discover the small body of a child, carefully wrapped in a shawl with a lotus motif. There are also jade amulets inserted into the folds. On further inspection, it is clear the child died in suspicious circumstances.

The Scilly Isles are unaccustomed to this level of violence and subterfuge, and the investigations, under Ben’s leadership, sweep into action. Then a baby is anonymously deposited at the police station, and soon a link to the body is established.

The islanders are fully aware that their haven is prime landfall for smugglers of goods and people, and given the ethnicity of the dead person, theories begin to formulate.

There are many switchbacks and tight turns as perpetrators come into the frame, and a clear suspect soon seems to be established. However, there is a long way to go to solve the murder. A group of young adults in the area have their own theories about what is going but they are struggling to get themselves heard.

The Isles of Scilly are beautifully rendered, their remoteness proving a perfect backdrop for this crime thriller.  There is a good shout out for On The Quay for any visitors looking for sustenance in Hugh Town on St Mary’s and plenty of bucolic and brooding wintery vistas, as the inhabitants move around the islands. The weather adds another level of tension, an invetiible feature of the landscape, as the seas roil and the clouds roll in.

A good, well plotted and easy read with a textured and evocative backdrop.

Tina for the TripFiction Team

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